The Thirteenth Spirit
by JuJuBiest
Summary: On an otherwise normal day, Kurt meets a mysterious stranger and is instantly drawn to him for reasons he can't explain. The deeper he falls, however, the darker and more uncertain things become. Because there's something...off about Blaine Anderson...
1. Chapter 1: A Stranger in the Dark

**Chapter One: A Stranger in the Dark**

_Twenty-One Days Before Halloween_

We tell ourselves there's nothing going bump in the night, and that the monsters we sense under our beds and the ghosts standing invisible just over our shoulders aren't real. We convince ourselves the only predators stalking us in the darkness are human, because then we feel like we can protect ourselves. If it's human, it's just as vulnerable as you are, bound by the same limitations. If it's human it can be discouraged by a group of your friends, a locked door, a weapon…even an alert manner. You can make yourself feel just that tiny bit better if you look over your shoulder and seem like you know where you're going, because conventional wisdom says that predators pick on the weak, and for a human you're pretty good at looking like one of the strong. _At the very worst,_ you tell yourself, _I'll see an attack coming and I'll be able to scream, or run, or fight it off._

But what if the predator isn't bound by your limitations? What if distance, locked doors, human strength in any numbers—all of the things we use to reassure and protect ourselves, in other words—mean absolutely nothing to the thing that's stalking you through the darkness?

What if those eyes you imagine you see gleaming out at you from the bushes are really there?

What if sometimes the thing that's following you down that dark, deserted road at night isn't human at all?

* * *

><p>From the moment I looked into his eyes I knew there was something different about him, something dark inside that would rear its ugly head and try to swallow me whole if I gave it just the slightest sign of weakness. I told myself to stop so many times, to turn back, look the other way, don't get involved.<p>

I often give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

The trouble is, he's really hard to say no to, and not just because he's naturally alluring. There's something inherently…sweet about him that makes him twice as dangerous as other—but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I suppose I should start at the beginning, although you might wonder why. At the time, it all seemed so unimportant. It started out as such an ordinary day.

* * *

><p>"So, Kurt, Brittany's hosting the annual Halloween Ball this year, and since she's in Glee I figure all us Gleeks will get an automatic invite to the illicit social event of the season. Which means—"<p>

"—you don't even have to finish that sentence," I said to my best friend and partner in no crime (because really, what on earth is worth doing that's criminal in Lima, Ohio?), Mercedes Jones. "We need costumes. Epic costumes."

"Absolutely. What are we going to do?"

"Well," I said, shouldering my bag and shutting my locker after a last glance to make certain my hairstyle was still perfectly in place, "I propose we make our own. Not only would I refuse to be caught dead in most of the polyester nightmares they sell at costume stores, can you imagine showing up as one of many Pirate Wenches and Ghostface Killers?" I shuddered delicately at the thought, and Mercedes grimaced.

"Okay, so where are we going to get the materials?"

"Leave that to me," I said. "First, you need an idea. Meet me after school at my car with at least three rough sketches of costume proposals, and we," I motioned between us with two fingers, "will do some shopping tonight. _Au revoir_!"

I waved Mercedes into her class and continued down the hall toward French II, turning the corner only to be met by a wall of red letterman jackets. I nearly smacked right into Azimio Adams—oh wouldn't _that _have been a quick ending to a tragic tale—but managed to stop just shy of it, skittering back a couple of steps and turning to find that the hall had emptied of all but the most useless of bystanders: a redheaded girl I didn't know by name who backed into the girls' bathroom with a terrified look on her face, and Jacob Ben Israel, who for once didn't seem keen on getting a story as he turned one hundred and eighty degrees and started walking quickly in the opposite direction, glad to let me take the beating on my own.

I turned slowly back to the group of football players, most of whom were looking at me with varying degrees of—discomfort?

"Gentlemen," I said in my most dismissive voice, "If you'll excuse me, I really need to get to class—"

"You're not goin' anywhere, Hummel," said Azimio. "We need a favor."

"A…favor? What in the world could you possibly need from me?"

"We—" Azimio motioned nodded at the rest of the football players, "Need dance lessons. For the Halloween Ball. Pierce and Lopez talked all of the Cheerios into startin' off the dance with some kinda waltz or somethin'. So now all our girlfriends told us if we make them look stupid, we'll spend the rest of our high school lives flying solo…if you get what I mean."

I hate to admit it, but I blushed. I'm a teenage boy; allusions to…um…_self-service _(blush, grimace, cringe, ugh) should _not _make me feel so awkward. They do. Probably because I have never in my life been able to bring myself to do…that.

"O—kay," I said, hesitantly. "So, why are you asking me? Why not Mike Change, he's way better at dancing than...well, anybody."

"Mike's got the moves—no homo—uh…no offense. You know what I mean?" Azimio was looking more awkward by the minute, and I can't say I wasn't enjoying it just a little, even if the entire situation was perplexing. If you'd told me in my freshman year of high school that by senior year I'd have the entire football team begging me for dance lessons and trying not to be offensive about my sexuality? Let's just say _I died laughing_ would be something of an understatement. Azimio was still talking.

"Anyway…Chang can dance, but I have it on good authority you taught Hudson to waltz for your parents' wedding. Man, if you can teach _Hudson _to dance without steppin' on his girl's feet, I figure there's no way you can't teach the rest of us, you feel me?"

"If you're asking whether I see your point, I do," I said briskly. "And I suppose since you have mysteriously refrained from ruining any of my ensembles thus far I am willing to let bygones be bygones in order to save you all from a future in manual labor. Meet me in the auditorium tomorrow after football practice. Now if you'll excuse me, I am late for French."

I moved to go around them, and this time they let me pass. I managed to make it all the way down the hall and around the next corner before I burst out laughing. _Manual labor. _I cannot believe I made a joke like that to half the football team! I pulled out my phone, intent on texting the whole bizarre experience to Mercedes before I headed to class.

* * *

><p>Two classes, a coffee run, some fine-tuning of our costume concepts, and an obscene amount of fabric store perusal later, Mercedes and I collapsed into a booth at Breadstix and buried our noses in our menus. We'd reached that point where we'd had just about enough of one another for one day, and would be glad for the food as an excuse not to talk for a little while. It happens to the best of friends sometimes I guess, especially if you rarely spend time in the company of anyone else. Besides, we were <em>starving.<em>

The meal was a quick affair, and mostly quiet, although the silence grew more companionable and less testy once we got some food in us. We split the check right down the middle—a long-standing tradition—and then headed outside. Just as we got to the door, Mercedes' phone went off.

"Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her, "the _Avatar _theme?" She waved me off and answered, a flush and a smile on her face. I rolled my eyes and continued out the door, calling behind me that she should come to the car when she was finished talking. I'm happy for Sam and Mercedes—especially since I didn't really expect the long distance thing to survive the end of summer—but is there anything more depressing than being single and trapped in a vehicle with your giddy best friend on the phone with her gorgeous boyfriend? No, there is not, and that was a rhetorical question.

I shivered in the night air, unseasonably cold even for autumn in Ohio, and slipped my hands into my coat pockets. The air had that crisp, earthy-but-clean smell of rain on dying leaves, and I could see my breath clouding the air in front of my face. I began a leisurely stroll in the general direction of the car, just enjoying the night air and the quiet.

"Hello."

The voice startled me, and I jumped. I also may have yelped, but I can't be blamed for that. One minute I was alone on the sidewalk in front of Breadstix, and the next I was clutching at my heart and staring, wide-eyed, at a boy about my age in a dark pea coat, red scarf and grey slacks, head cocked to one side and grinning at me like he knew the punch line to a private joke I'd missed the telling of. I took deep breaths through my nose and tried to force my gaping expression into a glare.

"What is your problem, sneaking up on a person like that!" I snapped at him. His smile faltered a little, and wide, dark eyes looked at me in such a way that I felt immediately as if I had kicked a happy puppy.

"I'm sorry," he said in the warmest, sincerest voice I had ever heard. I noticed he spoke with perfect diction. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Blaine." He stuck out his hand, smile threatening to sneak back onto his face already, as if it couldn't bear to disappear for long. I regarded him for a split second, really took him in. Incredibly long lashes framed those dark eyes, and his hair was black and curly, but neat, carefully styled. His smile was full of white teeth that were perfectly straight, although I thought they looked oddly sharp and pointed in places. That could have been the light, though. For a second, when I'd first noticed him, I'd thought his eyes were completely black, too—no whites to them at all. Clearly _that _was impossible. I willed my imagination to stop running wild.

I took his hand in mind and shook it, surprised at how warm his skin felt against mine.

"Kurt," I said, only a little breathlessly. It was just beginning to dawn on me that this random stranger on the street—_Blaine_—was absolutely gorgeous, and that he was smiling at me in a way that I could only interpret as delighted.

"Delighted to meet you, Kurt," he said, and wow—it was like he read my mind. Of course that's ridiculous, but it was how I felt at the time. The whole thing seemed surreal. Actually, it still does, no matter how many of the things I've learned since then I apply to what happened that night.

It suddenly occurred to me that I'd been much too quiet for a far longer span of time than was considered normal under the circumstances, and that my hand was still clasped in Blaine's. That warmth seemed to be intensifying and spreading all the way up my arm. I let go abruptly, and I could have sworn I saw those eyes flicker black as pitch for a millisecond before they were back to being just a pair of dark puppy-dog eyes, blinking up at me out of the most angelic face I had ever seen.

"It's nice to meet you, too," I said faintly, just as I heard the door to Breadstix open behind me. The sounds of people chattering over dinner drifted out onto the still air, and I heard Mercedes' voice over the low din.

"Okay, Sam, I'll call you tomorrow. I need to find Kurt before he leaves me here. 'Bye!"

"I'll see you later, Kurt," said Blaine amiably, although I thought something in his face had closed down as soon as Mercedes' voice had reached us. He turned and walked away quickly, turning down a side street and disappearing before I had time to think of anything else to say. I was still standing there, completely dumbfounded, when Mercedes caught up with me, rubbing her arms and shivering.

"Let's get to the car," she said, "I'm freezing. How on earth can you handle strolling around in this weather?"

I didn't answer. I don't think I said anything else to Mercedes for the rest of the night. If she noticed that I was behaving strangely, she didn't mention it. I think she was too busy regaling me with details of Sam's phone call, but I didn't really absorb any of what she said. It's like my mind had walked off into the night with a handsome, black-eyed stranger named Blaine, and never come back.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: Much love to darrenlivesinmyhead from tumblr for inspiring me to write this. My goal is to finish it in time to post the last chapter on Halloween. As for my other fics: I am still working diligently on ALL of them. If it says incomplete, rest assured I am still writing on it. It's becoming more and more difficult to update regularly as I now have to write for classes again and I find myself out of my room more often than I'm in it, but I am not abandoning any of my fics. To the person who asked for more Music For A Song in lieu of the many drabbles and one-shots I've been posting (and then made a Tori Amos reference to boot!), I hear you. I really, REALLY want to post more Music For A Song, and more Ugly Duckling, but I want the things I post to live up to whatever expectations I've set with previous chapters, and right now they just do not. I have most of the next chapter of MFAS written, and about 13 of the next chapter of Ugly Duckling, and I still do have all the plotting planned out for both of those. All I can do at this point is hope that my muse starts sticking around for more than half an hour at a time soon, or that the return of Dave Karofsky to my television screen will inspire me, or something. Thank you to everyone who reads my fics and especially those of you who leave reviews, you are my inspiration and I swear to you, if I ever get something legit published, I will unabashedly thank you all on the dedication page.**

**Love,**

**~ The Raisin Girl**


	2. Chapter 2: Passion and Obsession

**Chapter Two: Passion and Obsession**

_Seventeen days before Halloween_

I consider myself a very passionate person, about certain things. Art, music, theatre—especially music, it's an incredible outlet—the fact that every moment of your life is an opportunity for fashion. I'm passionate about Glee, and my friends, and Lady Gaga, and my love for my strange hodgepodge of a family. I adore the idea of love, and romance, and sometimes it feels like I've been looking for it my entire life. Sometimes, I feel like I will _be_ looking for it my entire life, and I wonder if that search will be fruitless.

The one thing I've never been passionate about is...well, passion for its own sake. If you take my meaning. It's not that I've never thought about it, or wanted it, it's just...hard to know how to negotiate that particular rite of passage when you're the only out gay kid in your entire town. It's even worse when everyone seems to expect you to act like a girl about everything, and resents it when you don't. My dad's never tried to talk to me about sex, or boys, or dating, for instance. I guess guys don't really get "The Talk" so much as a stack of _those_ magazines, and I just cannot imagine my dad braving the (supposed, it may not even exist) gay porn rack in Lima's only adult novelties store in order to teach his homosexual son about the birds and the...birds? The bees and the bees? You see how all the traditional metaphors break down.

My brother, on the other hand, treats my (again, supposed, because of course he's never actually asked) virginity as a precious thing to be guarded at all costs. He's gotten super protective, and while I find it kind of sweet, especially compared to the way he used to act about all things Kurt's-sexuality-related, it's also really annoying.

So yes, assuming I ever do find another out, gay guy that I'm interested in who's actually interested in me as well, I won't know what to do with him, and even assuming I did, I'd have to figure out a way to pry the keys to the chastity belt out of my big, sweet oaf of a stepbrother's cold, dead hands.

Needless to say, I spend a lot of time singing (and taking really cold showers). Where was I?

Oh yes. I'm a passionate person, but not particularly _physical._ I don't touch, and I don't get touched, even casually, with very few exceptions. I guess it's something I started doing unconsciously as a kid, to protect myself, and now my friends mostly go along with it because they just assume I don't _want_ to be touched. I'm used to it. It doesn't bother me...much. I don't think about it a lot, and I certainly don't dream about it.

So imagine my surprise when I woke up one night, for literally the first time in my life, with sticky sheets and a pair of dark, dangerous eyes lingering in my imagination. My whole body felt flushed and overheated. I couldn't get back to sleep no matter how hard I tried.

I did laundry instead.

* * *

><p>I had lived my entire life in Lima, Ohio without stumbling across this Blaine person even once, but suddenly he seemed to be, quite literally, everywhere. I ran into him every time I went to get coffee. Each time he smiled and nodded in my direction, but he never said anything else to me. I saw him in my father's shop once, asking my dad questions about some obscure fossil of a car he was apparently resurrecting with <em>his<em> dad. Once again, he gave me a smile and a nod before continuing his conversation, and he left without a word to me. Several times I could have sworn I was catching a gleam of dark curls out of the corner of my eye in the hallways at school, but McKinley High isn't exactly a big place. If he had always been there, I would have known it, and if he were a new student, I would have heard about it. Probably from Mercedes, and definitely from Santana Lopez. I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid.

Then one day, less than a week after the first time I saw him, I walked out to my car after Glee practice to find him leaning against it casually, smiling that toothy smile and looking for all the world like some anti-hero dark prince out of a fractured fairy tale, or the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks...if bad boys wore pea coats hanging open over navy blue blazers with sharply-pressed grey slacks and black dress shoes polished to a pristine, impossible shine. _Danny Zucco in a schoolboy uniform: if there is a God, tell him from me this is officially no longer funny._

I should have turned right around and gone for Finn. This guy was a stranger to me, obviously not a student here, quite possibly stalking me, even. There was no good reason for me to approach him on my own, except my own stupid pride telling me to stop acting like a damsel in distress, and the abrupt loss of my temper directed at this random boy who made me _feel _like a damsel in distress without even doing anything to me. By the time I reached him, I was fuming.

"What the hell is your problem?" I asked him furiously, fists clenched at my sides and glare firmly in place. The smile dropped off his face like a discarded mask, and he looked confused.

"My problem? I don't understand. I have no problem. I just keep seeing you around and I thought I would come and say hell-"

"Oh, you keep 'seeing me around?' Well maybe if you'd stop _following_ me around, that would be rectified." I expected a reaction out of him at the accusation: anger, denial, something. Instead, he just smiled at me like he was amused.

"I didn't mean to bother you, Kurt," he said softly. "I just haven't stopped thinking about you since we ran into one another on the street the other night. Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Well, _that_ got my attention. And knocked the wind out of me. And sent a chill down my spine. And made me forget how to use words. It wasn't just what he said, it was the way he said it: it was all wrong, too smooth and almost rehearsed. I didn't believe his voice, but strangely enough I believed the words themselves.

"Do I-" I struggled to wrap my mind around what I had just heard. I couldn't. "What?" I asked weakly.

"Love at first sight, Kurt," he said, voice low and still too smooth. He pushed off the side of my car and stepped forward, into my space...much too into my space. One minute we're at respectable talking distance, the next he's standing so close our toes are touching and I can feel his warm breath across my face, and there's nowhere I can look but down into those dark eyes gazing up at me with an intensity I cannot even begin to describe.

"Do you believe in it?" He asked me again, and grasped one of my clenched fists in one of his. The traitorous appendage relaxed at once, allowing him to twine his fingers through mine and pull our clasped hands to his chest, resting them there. I could feel the heat of his skin through his coat. I was certain I could hear his heartbeat thrumming through my ears. I closed my eyes, and I found this helped me remember how to speak.

"I...don't know what you're talking about," I said. "I don't know what this is. Is this some kind of joke?"

"I never joke about love, Kurt," Blaine said quietly into my ear, and I shuddered at the warm moisture of his breath on the tender skin. I felt a heat bubbling up inside, something vaguely familiar and brand new at the same time, something I'd heard about and felt the echoes of, the first time Finn Hudson had defended me, the first time I'd laid eyes on Sam Evans, so many first sights of boys who grew into friends, enemies, or family, and then that echo faded. But this was no echo: this was the original symphony, playing through my nerve endings and making my whole body thrum with a new and completely terrifying sense of _want_, and Blaine was the master conductor, pushing and pulling the swells of emotion out of me in aching staccato. I took a deep breath to steady myself, and regretted it instantly, because it filled my senses with what could only be Blaine's scent: hair gel, cologne, clean wool, boy, and something else...something faintly dark and smoky, like he spent a lot of time in front of a fireplace, sitting much too close, and the scent of smoke and ash had clung to his skin. It burned in the back of my throat and tingled on the tip of my tongue, and I shuddered because I wanted to kiss him, to taste him. _I wonder if he tastes as good as he smells._

My eyes snapped open, and I pulled away. He let me go without a struggle, much to my dismay-relief-surprise, and I pulled my hand protectively against my own chest, putting enough distance between us that I couldn't feel the delicious heat radiating from him or smell that smoky smell that made me want to do things I'd never even imagined before, not in my wildest dreams.

"I don't think I believe in love at first sight," I said as brusquely as I could, avoiding his eyes. "How can you love someone you don't even know? It's quite a romantic notion, and I love romance as much as the next person, but I'm sorry. I don't believe in it."

Blaine considered me for a moment. I could feel his gaze, and it...it burned. It burned in a good way, a way I was afraid of, because it made me want so much more than his eyes on me. The silence grew so hot with tension that when he spoke, his dangerously beautiful voice was actually a reprieve.

"I understand, Kurt." He sounded cheerful, and I was instantly suspicious. "I guess we'll just have to get to know one another better."

I looked up to tell him that was not what I meant at all, and by the way to stay the hell away from me—at least, I'd like to think that's what I would have told him. But he was already gone.

* * *

><p>Which brings me back to doing my laundry in the middle of the night while trying to block out the dream, the dark glint of his eyes, the delicious feel of his hands on me…stop it! I couldn't understand why he affected me so easily. It made absolutely no sense! Two brief encounters, two touches from his hand, and I was having incredibly detailed, <em>palpable <em>dreams about things I shouldn't have been able to even fathom, because I'd never done any of them. I wasn't sure whether to be angry, embarrassed, or worried. How desperate, how deprived—or depraved—do you have to be before your brain starts conjuring up elaborate sexual scenarios about obnoxious, mysterious dark strangers you've only met twice?

I seriously considered calling Rachel and asking for the name of her therapist. If only that course of action didn't require actually talking to Rachel.

I must have fallen asleep during the drying cycle, because before I knew it Finn was bounding downstairs to grab a pair of clean underwear—the goof never does remember to get his laundry and put it away—and waking me up with the crash of his boat-like feet against the linoleum. I groaned and sat up, and he stopped short, looking at me in confusion.

"Dude, what're you doing asleep in the laundry room?" I blushed, silently cursing my pale complexion. It's in vogue—at least this season—and it goes with everything, but it also _shows _everything: every freckle, every bruise and scratch, and every single time I'm embarrassed I light up like the nose on Rudolph.

Finn looked from me to the blinking dryer, and comprehension flooded his face, followed closely by awkward embarrassment.

"Dude…you? Really? I mean, uh…I'm gonna go see what Mom made for breakfast."

He ran back upstairs. I just buried my red face in my arms and grimaced. This was going to be incredibly awkward. _Freaking Blaine, this is all your fault._

* * *

><p>For a couple of days I didn't catch even a glimpse of Blaine anywhere, and I'm ashamed to say this made me incredibly anxious. Call me a sap, but it's not every day a gorgeous—if terrifying and slightly infuriating—boy declares his love for Kurt Hummel, and to say that I wasn't dealing very well with the idea of his vanishing into thin air thereafter would be an egregious understatement.<p>

The truth is, I was an unholy mess.

"Dammit, Noah, watch where you're stomping! We're dancing, not impersonating Godzilla."

"Dude, if I weren't so impressed that you even know who Godzilla is, I would totally make you pay for that diss."

"Kurt, Puck! Less talk, more dance!"

"Sorry, Mr. Schue," we said almost in unison, still glaring at one another. Puck and I had developed a weird sort of friendship over the course of our time in Glee club. We never hang out on our own time, and we actually don't ever talk that much, but Puck's…nice, or at least as nice as he ever can be. And last year, when things got truly scary for McKinley High's gay poster child for awhile, Puck was one of the ones who stepped up to defend me. He's "had my back" ever since, like my own version of the Secret Service, if Secret Servicemen wore Mohawks and letterman jackets.

On this particular day, however, I was about ten seconds from throttling him with my scarf. I'd seen Blaine on Friday after school, but he hadn't cropped up over the weekend at all. Not that I'd gone for coffee anymore than usual hoping to run into him or anything, of course. But I'd been seeing him pop up in unexpected places for nearly a week, and then suddenly he disappeared just as suddenly as he had come. I hated wondering when he'd decide to make an appearance. I hated even more the tiny, mournful little voice in the back of my mind that whispered _if. _It made me much less tolerant of Puck's shenanigans in Glee practice that day, and apparently, people were starting to notice.

"Kurt," Mr. Schue said as we were on our way out. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Okay," I said warily. I'm always a little wary with Mr. Schue; I never know quite where I stand. He's never explicitly said he had a problem with my sexuality, but he's never really seemed comfortable with me embracing it either. And last year, when the aforementioned scary things we don't talk about happened? Mr. Schue was sympathetic and all, but he wasn't exactly helpful. He always seemed oblivious to what was happening, and the one time I called him on it, he brushed it off as me being pissy about an assignment I didn't want to do.

"Kurt, is everything alright?" He asked, eyes cautious. He put a tentative hand on my shoulder. "You've been…agitated these last couple of days. Is anything going on?"

I understood immediately. _Lately you've been belligerent…_

He made a similar observation last year, when things were just starting to get really bad. I suddenly felt a little bit bad for the way I'd underestimated him: he thought he was seeing a repeat of last year, and he was attempting to reach out now, before things got worse, and head off a disaster before it could happen instead of just ignoring it and hoping it would go away. I smiled at him, genuinely touched.

"I'm fine, Mr. Schue. Nothing serious," I said honestly. "Just the general teenage angst and bipolarity this time." He winced, just with his eyes; he was remembering _last _time. Teacup-dwelling moon dwarf bless him. He gave me a smile, and patted my shoulder before releasing me.

"Okay, if you say so," he said, still caution and somber. "Just…know I'm here, if you need anything. Please don't hesitate to tell me Kurt. I'll listen, I promise."

The lump in my throat didn't allow me to say anything, so I just nodded, gave him a watery smile, and walked out before my blasted, overdeveloped tear ducts could get the best of me.

* * *

><p>Even Mr. Schue's unexpected concern wasn't enough to keep my mind off of freaking Blaine for long, unfortunately. I was starting to think I'd gone a little insane, actually. As I walked out of the school, I kept hoping he'd suddenly appear around a corner, or be leaning against my car when I got to the parking lot. I couldn't understand <em>why <em>he continued to have such a hold on me. In just a week he had reduced me from my fabulous, lofty self—above the petty dramas and awkward mating rituals of the average high schooler—to a typical teenage mess.

I was becoming _obsessed._

Maybe I was thinking about him entirely too much. Maybe I wasn't thinking enough about all the good reasons I shouldn't want to think about him at all. Maybe I should have realized that the entire situation was all too bizarre to be as firmly based in banal reality as it should have been.

Maybe I heaved a sigh of quiet relief when I walked into the Lima Bean for my afternoon coffee run to see the back of a dark, curly head near the front of the line. Maybe my heart skipped a beat when Blaine turned, a drink in each hand, and immediately caught my eye, his face lighting up into a truly breathtaking smile.

Maybe passion and obsession aren't so distinguishable, sometimes?


	3. Chapter 3: Butterfly Kisses

**Chapter Three: Butterfly Kisses**

_Fifteen days before Halloween_

Blaine nodded his head toward a table near a sunny window, and I followed him, my eyes downcast and my face blushing furiously. He reached the table before me, of course, setting the two coffees carefully down and pulling out a chair before pausing to look expectantly at me as I approached. I fought a smile as I sat down in the proffered seat and let my gaze follow him shamelessly as he moved to the chair across from me and sat down with a strange and buoyant kind of grace.

"This one is yours," he said cheerfully, gesturing to one of the cups. "Medium drip." I stared at him, not sure whether to be charmed or completely creeped out. I settled for being inquisitive.

"How on _earth,_" I said, leaning forward to take the sanity-saving beverage and quirking what I hoped was a sardonically amused smile in his direction, "do you know my coffee order?"

"Because I'm magic," he shot right back, good-naturedly, taking a sip of his own drink before letting a grin stretch his red lips just a bit, like he had to fight to keep from finding everything far too amusing. "And also because I was in line behind you last week when you ordered. You seemed like a one-coffee-order kind of guy."

I rolled my eyes at him and decided to be charmed. It wasn't really stalker behavior, but I made a mental note to, at some point, establish some kind of boundaries with this boy. _And…when did I decide there would be a 'some point'? What the—_

"What are you thinking about so intensely?" Blaine said, his voice warm and playful. For reasons I cannot explain to this day, I decided to be honest.

"You, and whether you're a practical joke, a creepy stalker, or a stroke of truly incredible luck."

"Couldn't I be all three?" was his retort. I grinned again in spite of myself. _Gorgeous and quick on the draw…oh dear._

"I suppose that's not entirely outside the realm of possibility," I said, trying to keep my tone blasé and noncommittal. I was enjoying bantering with him far too much already, and I felt a dangerous shift somewhere beneath my breastbone when I realized abruptly that I was actually enjoying his company. Granted, it had only been a few minutes yet, and he could still do something to entirely ruin the moment. _I'll just have to hold out hope for that, I suppose._

"So let me get to know you, Kurt," Blaine said abruptly. "I want to know everything!"

_And…there it is. Awkward weirdness is back. _"Why? You already know everything you need to stalk me," I said, trying to make it sound like a joke. "My schedule, my coffee order. Do you drive by my house at night?"

"What would be the point in that?" he asked, genuinely confused. "Aren't you usually asleep at night?" I stared at him for a long moment. He dipped a biscotti in his coffee and took a bite from it, chewing absently and not looking at me. I cleared my throat to get his attention back from the baked goods.

"What?" He said blankly.

"For future reference, the correct answer to any question implying you might really and truly be a sociopath is, 'of course not, Kurt, don't be silly.'"

"Of course not, Kurt, don't be silly," he said obediently, grinning goofily at me over the remaining half of his biscotti. I wanted to glare, but something about that grin was so…well, it was darn _cute. _I settled for a headshake and returning my attention to my drink. It was silent for a moment, and—belatedly—the wheels in my head started to turn a little. I started to wonder.

"Blaine," I said finally, without taking my eyes from my coffee cup. "Why do you want to get to know me so badly?"

"Because you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen anywhere."

Again the answer came _too_ quickly. Shouldn't he have to think more about this, or be reluctant to admit so much so soon? It didn't feel wrong from beginning to end—although perhaps it should have—but it didn't feel _right _either. I was suddenly really uncomfortable again. I pushed back from the table, fully intending to make some excuse to leave, but he put a hand on my arm and looked anxiously up into my face.

"Kurt, where are you going?"

"Blaine, I need to get home, and I think you need to stay away from me. This is crazy."

"What's so crazy about wanting to get to know you?"

"You have _no _reason to want to know me," I said, getting impatient. "You have no reason to get in my personal space and say you're in love with me. You have no reason to show up suddenly, out of nowhere, and start messing with my head like this! It was amusing at first, but now it quite honestly frightens me."

He dropped his hand from my arm, and looked down at his feet, brow furrowed.

"I'm doing this all wrong, aren't I?" He sounded so…small. I shouldn't have answered. I should have taken my opportunity and walked out.

"You just need to tell me the truth," I said gently. "Why do you want to get to know me so badly?" He looked up at me with big, unfathomable eyes.

"I…I can't really tell you that," he said, and it was the first thing I'd heard him sound unsure about. "I saw you, and…I just…I just _knew, _okay? But you don't believe me, and…look, I just want to spend some more time with you, okay? Can we please…can I please just show you I'm not a total creep? Go on one date with me, and if you don't have fun I swear I'll never bother you again."

I considered him for a moment. He looked so hopeful. He was looking at me as if his entire existence depended on me agreeing to go on one date. I hate to admit it, but quite aside from the expression being heartbreaking, it touched a nerve. I'd only been waiting _all my life_ for someone to look at me like that, after all.

I said yes. The smile he gave me was so bright it made me wish for my Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses.

* * *

><p>"Okay, enough already, Blaine. Where on earth are we going?"<p>

Blaine looked across the car at me with that smile again, the one he'd given me in the coffee shop the day before. I felt my heart stutter in my chest. Blaine's smile…there's no appropriate metaphor. It isn't just his face that lights up. It's like the sun actually comes out from behind a cloud, and you didn't realize just how grey and dismal the day was until suddenly everything is bathed in this golden light and the colors are so bright they hurt your eyes a little bit, but in a way that makes you want to smile, too. You can't look at it _without_ smiling, actually. Believe me, I've tried. See? There's just no metaphor, only sad clichés that fail utterly to do any justice to the real thing. I give up.

"You'll see when we get there," he said, still beaming away. "You'll like it. I promise."

"I'm going to trust you…although I have no idea why I should," I muttered. He just kept grinning. Damn him.

We had been driving for what seemed like an interminably long time, and we had left Lima behind quite a while ago. I was starting to get a little nervous, actually. I'd jumped in a car with a random guy that I knew literally _nothing _about, and where he was driving me was anybody's guess. I had my cell phone with me, and I'd told my dad I was going to be hanging out with a friend, but still. My brain picked a really awful moment to point out to me that I didn't even know Blaine's last name.

"Wow," I said. He glanced at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. I studied him for a moment before deciding to go ahead and ask.

"Blaine…I just realized I don't even know what your last name is." He chuckled, and the sound was a little…dark. I glared at him.

"Seriously? You think now is the appropriate time to bring out the Disney villain laughter?"

"Why not?" He shrugged. "You're thinking you don't know my last name, or where we're going, and you're wondering if I'm really a sociopathic serial killer, am I right?" The grin he tossed carelessly in my direction was nothing short of pure evil_, _and it did things to my heart rate. I didn't know whether to be scared or…well…incredibly turned on. _Wow. He really ought to be careful where he tosses those things._

"R-right," I stammered, mostly because of that smile but also because his nonchalance—probably meant to make me laugh—just made me kind of nervous. Nervousness seemed to be my dominant emotion when it came to Blaine, and I wondered if removing some of the mystery of him would help with that.

"Anderson," he said, breaking into my thoughts.

"What?"

"My last name," he said patiently. "It's Anderson. You know, if you were just a little more calculating, you could have just asked your dad. I've been consulting him about parts for a car my dad and I are rebuilding, and I know you've seen me talking to him at least once."

"Oh." I said stupidly. Then, "Well excuse me, I skipped Stalker 101."

"So did I," he said lightly. "Or rather, I tested out." For the first time in my life, I actually facepalmed.

"Blaine," I said into my hand. "What did we talk about in the coffee shop yesterday?"

"How creepy I am?" he asked, grinning. _God, does he ever stop grinning?_

"Precisely."

"I swear I'm not," he said, still keeping his tone light. "I'm just your average teenage boy. Maybe I'm a little more…enthusiastic…than most people. It's a flaw." He shrugged. "You also might say I'm not very good at romance." Here, his voice grew suddenly small and vulnerable again, like it had for that short moment in the Lima Bean. "I'm trying, though."

He stared resolutely at the road, shoulders tight as if expecting a rebuff. I reached out without really thinking and put a hand on his arm.

"Hey," I said playfully. "At this point I don't expect romance. I'll settle for a modicum of normalcy, if you have it."

He studied me for a second before the grin was back in full force.

"Fresh out, I'm afraid," he said. "No normalcy here at all, you'll have to settle for slightly creepy romance." I groaned and shook my head at him. He just laughed. We spent most of the car ride like that, bantering casually back and forth, until Blaine turned the radio on during a lull in the conversation.

"I love this song!" He exclaimed, positively glowing with delight. I smiled, endlessly amused by his antics, and sat back to watch as he launched into a rather animated and ridiculously flirty rendition of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream." His voice was beautiful, and soothing, and did lovely things to the bouncy pop number, turning it into a lullaby. I felt my eyes grow heavy; after all, I'd gotten up awfully early for a Saturday.

"Kurt," he said, what seemed like only moments later. "Wake up. We're here."

I opened my eyes, squinting against the mid-afternoon sunlight, to see Blaine standing over me, smiling indulgently. For just a split second his expression was unguarded, and his eyes looked completely black, like they had that first night. I blinked, and they were back to normal: still dark, but not completely, not inhumanly. My spine must have decided that a running chill was too cliché; at this point I felt like I had a cold knot of uncertainty and fear sitting somewhere in my midsection, keeping perfectly still until it decided to do a round-off and bounce around my ribcage whenever something about Blaine set off a warning bell. _What in the world are you? _I thought.

"Where are we?" I asked. He chuckled and held out a hand to me. I took it and clambered, graceless with sleep, out of the car.

* * *

><p>I kept trying—and failing—to take in the sights around me. It was too much at once and I was getting dizzy from all of the turning, turning, turning and trying to see everything. I had never in my life seen so many <em>butterflies.<em>

"Blaine," I breathed, "this place is beautiful." His only answer was a soft smile and an offered hand. I took it without hesitating for once, allowing him to pull me along the sandy path lined in multicolored stones, gazing about in awe at the colorful, fluttering wings catching the sunlight everywhere I looked. It was wonderfully disorienting; I knew it was cold outside, but in here it was summertime. I saw green everywhere I looked and felt warm right down to my fingers and toes, especially the fingers of my right hand, clasped securely in Blaine's. His palms were slightly rough and not just warm, but almost hot. I blushed a little to think how we must look, wandering hand-in-hand through a butterfly garden together.

"Blaine," I said softly. "This is wonderful. Thank you."

Blaine squeezed my hand gently.

"I hoped you would like it," he said, his voice soft and his eyes dark and glittering. "Would you like me to tell you about them?"

"Please do," I said, still a bit breathless but too blown away by the beauty of the gesture to care. Another squeeze of my hand, and then Blaine pulled me forward to look at a small cluster of butterflies perched on a low-hanging tree limb. They were a bright, electric blue.

"These are blue Morpho butterflies," he said, leaning in close. He released my hand only to rest his palms light on my shoulders. His breath tickled my ear and sent goosebumps shivering across my skin, a completely different sensation from the knot of cold fear in my stomach…a knot that was loosening as we stood there, surrounded by light and beauty, warm hands on my shoulders and warm breath in my ear, eyes fluttering closed like the wings of butterflies and heart racing, mind drifting wondering what it would feel like if he pressed those lips to the skin just below my ear, the spot I felt his breath drift across with every word he was speaking to me in that quiet, beautiful voice full of dark intentions and terrifying, elating promises.

He was still talking about the butterflies, but my mind had gone off into left field and had no hope of making its way back. The words just washed over me as I tried to control my breathing.

"The little darker ones, the ones with the blue and black streaks, there? Those are the Karner blues. They're an endangered species, associated with wild lupines. They drink nectar. Those orange ones are tricky; some are the Viceroy and some are the Monarch. The way you tell is the dark line across the wingspan; the ones with that are the Viceroys. The Monarch is poisonous and its wings are different on their underside. That big yellow one is a Tiger Swallowtail…little black and white is a Zebra Swallowtail…tiny, pale blue ones are…"

I drifted in and out as he talked, feeling a strange, creeping heat under the collar of my shirt and in the palms of my hands. He slid his hands down my arms and slipped them around my waist, and I leaned back into his embrace, eyes falling shut and breath coming too quick, too shallow. I felt light-headed, and ridiculous, and I was fully aware that a stupid smile was spreading its way across my face as I stood enveloped in the warmth and clean-gorgeous-smoky smell of Blaine, letting his breath drift over my neck and listening to him tell me everything I could ever want to know and would never be able to recall about the butterflies.

* * *

><p>The car ride back was mostly silent, but it wasn't uncomfortable in the least. Blaine was humming softly to himself, a song I didn't know, and seemed perfectly content. My mind, on the other hand, was racing away at ninety miles a minute. This was my first date. Blaine, for all his mysterious features, had gone out of his way to make it perfect. I eyed him surreptitiously, taking in the peaceful, unconscious smile on his lips. I don't think I had seen him look so carefree since I'd met him: his eyes were on the road, but his mind was so clearly still strolling through a garden full of butterflies. Looking at him like that…it made parts of me ache that I didn't even know existed.<p>

Before I knew it, we were pulling up in front of my house. Blaine parked and turned off the ignition, but I hesitated, not quite willing to leave the car just yet.

"I had a wonderful time," I said softly, looking down at my hands folded in my lap. I could feel him grinning in my peripheral vision. Like everything else about him, it gave off heat.

"I'm glad," he said simply. Silence slipped in and stretched out between us, replacing comfort with tension and making me squirm. I chance a look at his face, and then found that I couldn't look away.

He was staring back at me with undisguised longing. I didn't need experience to know what it was; I _felt_ it. My blood simmered in my veins at the thought of someone—of _Blaine_—wanting me. No one had ever wanted me. No one had ever_ looked_ at me like that before.

My first kiss went to a closeted football player in a dim locker room during a moment of anger and passion…the wrong kind of passion. It was shocking and sudden, and most of all it was scary. Compared to this, though, it was easy. It just happened, and then it was over, and I didn't have to do anything in between or make any difficult choices. This…this was real terror. This felt like my heart was going to bounce right out of my chest, run away, and hide under a rock until the end of time. Unless you've ever sat there in the semi-dark and listened to your blood pound in your ears while you try to find the nerve to lean over and kiss the person you like, you won't understand. I can't describe it. There aren't words.

If Blaine sensed any of my internal vacillation, he didn't show it. Didn't say anything, or move, or fidget; he just _looked _at me. If he had done something else, I might have just gotten out and gone inside. Instead I just felt my nerves winding tighter and tighter with every passing second.

Then, from one second to the next, it changed. Blaine moved; he looked down at his hands, licked nervously at his lips. _Licked_ those gorgeous, improbably red, soft-looking lips. I snapped.

I grabbed the lapels of the coat he was wearing and pulled him in, pressing our lips together in a desperate, messy approximation of a kiss that would have been mortifying if it hadn't been so…well, _delicious_. I thought something in my brain must have exploded, because I was blazing. From the moment his lips touched me I was just on _fire_, tendrils of heat rushing up my spine and settlings in those odd places again, just below the collar of my shirt and between my shoulder blades, in the palms of my hands as I released his coat and cupped his face to keep him close.

My face felt flushed and feverish. I was dizzy with want for something I couldn't even put a name to, unless it was simply Blaine. That seemed entirely plausible: I just wanted more and _more _of Blaine.

I think he must have felt it in my trembling, or tasted it in the tiny, frantic gasps of air that escaped into his mouth as our lips moved against each other. He pressed his hands against my face (heat-warmth-burning-_need_him) and deepened the kiss, a little moan falling from his lips and vibrating against mine. I saw stars. Literally.

It was a painfully short eternity before we came up for air. I opened my eyes to find that I was hovering over Blaine, having pressed him back against the driver's side door at some point. His lips were red, slightly open as he quietly tried to catch his breath. I looked into his eyes.

His face was a perfect mask of surprise, and his eyes were solid black.

I should have skittered back across the car, put as much space between us as possible. I should have been terrified looking into eyes that were pitch black and glassy, no whites or irises at all, but…I could feel _him_, skin warm under my hands, and I could feel his heartbeat, hear his soft and labored breathing. His face was the face of the boy who had taken me to see a wonderland of butterflies on my first date. This boy—whatever else he was—had made me feel more than I ever had about anything. He made me want things I'd seldom even thought of before. And I could feel the trembling of my own body echoed in his.

I held perfectly still and watched as his eyes slowly faded into the familiar almost-black irises I was used to, and his breathing slowed to a normal, deeper rhythm. I felt the thrum of fear run through me when I saw that _he_ was afraid.

"What are you?" I asked him. He closed his hands over mine and made to push me away, but I held on. My chest seized with panic at the thought of Blaine even _wanting _to push me away. Hadn't he spent every waking second since meeting me trying to eliminate the distance between us? I pressed my lips to his again, too hard and too hot and even messier than before. Maybe he felt something of my desperation, because the hands trying to push me away slipped up my arms and around my shoulders, rubbing soothing circles into my back as he returned the kiss. I felt my chest unclench even as my stomach curled into delicious knots of heat and…and _lust_ again, my need to know all but blotted out for a few blissful minutes by my need for more of him as I tasted this inside of his mouth. It burned in the back of my throat, but it tasted sweet.

Finally, my need for oxygen forced me to pull away, and I stared down at him again. His eyes were closed.

"Hey," I said, voice hoarse and shaky. "Look at me." I touched his face. He shook his head once, jerkily. No.

"Why not?"

"Because," he said reluctantly, "If I open my eyes right now you'll know for sure that it wasn't just a trick of the light. You'll run away and never speak to me again, or you'll stay…and I'll have to lie to you. I…I don't want to lie to you." He sounded small, bewildered, and so very lost.

"So…don't," I said. "I'm not going anywhere, Blaine. Just open your eyes."

He did. I stared into the solid black orbs: no familiar variations in color, no glimmers of light. He stared solemnly at me for a long, silent moment. When I broke that silence, I thanked my years of singing that my voice was quiet, but perfectly steady.

"Blaine…what are you?" I asked again.

At first I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then—

"I'm," he took a deep breath, then let it out in a nervous chuckle. "I don't know how to tell you what I am." The look he turned on me was sad, pleading…and desperate. It stung my heart to see him look at me that way, but it frightened me, too. Whatever his secret was, it was clearly something terrible, something he was trying to keep from me. I knew I needed to know.

"You have to tell me."

"I _can't," _he said. It was almost a wail. I pulled away from him, and he reached out to pull me back, looking frantic at the loss of contact. Looking the way I felt.

"Please, Kurt," he said. "Does it matter? Can't I just be Blaine and let that be enough for now?"

I looked into his eyes, the eyes I was used to. It felt wrong, so very wrong. But I couldn't say no to him. I don't know exactly when it would have been my cue to walk away from Blaine—from whatever he was and whatever it was about him that set of warning bells in my head, and frightened me—but by that point it was pretty clear that I'd missed it. Missed it by _miles._

"Okay," I said slowly. He looked relieved almost immediately, but I fixed him with a determined glare. "You don't have to tell me now. But Blaine…if I'm going to…be around you, eventually I'm going to have to know things about you. I'm going to have to know what I'm getting into here." His face fell, but he didn't look angry or sad anymore. Just…contemplative.

"Okay," he said slowly. "I'll tell you everything you want to know. But can it wait just a few days? I…it's not an easy thing to do, to trust someone."

"I know," I said, looking at him hard. "Believe me. I know it's not. But I can wait a few days, I suppose."

"Great!" And he was back to his buoyant self so fast it was like a switch had been thrown somewhere. I just couldn't keep up with it. That knot of fear was back, stronger than ever, and this time when he leaned in for a kiss it didn't melt away immediately. But I kissed him back, because his breath was sweet and he was Blaine, a giant magnet to me, a tiny pin. It was an imperative of nature; I didn't now how _not _to kiss him back. I closed my eyes and tried to silence the ache of fear with the certainty that sooner or later, Blaine would explain everything. Call me a sucker, but I really believed he would.

* * *

><strong><p>Author's Note: The plan was to finish this before Halloween. That didn't happen, obviously. Now I can't decide if I want to draw it out or wrap it up in the original ten chapters that I'd planned. It's not really going the way I had planned, either. It's difficult, because obviously Blaine has an affect on Kurt that isn't necessarily normal or natural, but I just can't see Kurt doing what I need for him to do for this story to be concluded in the time frame I set up for it. Ugh. Hooray for characters refusing to be just a TINY bit slutty for the sake of the plot. :P Still dedicating this to darrenlivesinmyhead for all her enthusiasm for new chapters.<p>

- The Raisin Girl

**


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